From: Charlie Dirksen
05/20/94 Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA Opening standard. But the pre-Nirvana, vibration of life build is
FANTASTIC!! Very mesmerizing! NIRVANA AT 4:20 !!! Those who were Kind-hearted for this YEM must have been
loving life at this point. What a sweet Nirvana segment! =^] The jamming around the Notes is fantastic... great stuff in here! An
excellent pre-Boy segment!! "Boy" at 7:31. Bad cut at 8:30 during the standard WUDMTF segment (a lazy D>A taper..).
Nothing lost. They aren't on trampolines, I think.. Trey and Mike just jam out with Page. YES!! Great Santana-esque jamming,
especially around 11 minutes. Sounds somewhat like part of "I Ain't Got Nobody, That I Can Depend On." This jam segment is
//////HOT\\\\\\ folks... well above average! Trey's jamming is extremely centered and genuinely mind-boggling in its majesty; and
the accompaniment from the others -- who also magnificently jam -- is incredible! At 13:48 or so, the jam goes off key, though,
and gets weird. And then Trey starts playing the Beatles' "Ob La Di Ob La Da." After Trey completely f#cks it up, though, he
just runs it into the ground. Just terrible. Booooo!!! And then the jam slows and funks out, like the dying out jam of the old
versions of Tweezer. Weird. Christ, what a buzzkill!!!! ;^{ This version was so incredible up until about 13:45 or so. At 15:21,
there is silence. Dead silence. (should we just end this NOW!?) And then Mike comes in slowly, and begins funking with Fish.
They kick into a reasonably decent bass and drums groove (Mike gets a fire in him and belts out some nice licks!). But it
doesn't last nearly as long as I would have liked. Closing segment at 16:09. Vocal jam... BIG HUGE SIGH. What a terrible
close to what was otherwise a fantastic version of YEM. Reviewing this reminded me of the Hershey 12/1 Weekapaug (which
has one the greatest weekapaug jam segments but also one of the most outrageously lame weekapaug endings, imo.. as lame as
10/22/96 is amazing). The vocal jam has a "Low Rider" jam in it. It's good... a genteel vocal jam. Some spooky groaning in it,
though, towards the end. And screeeeeeching!!!!!! YIKES!!!! OUCH!!! RUN AWAY!!! Total time 20:55. A fantastic jam
segment, up until Ob La Di, and well, the opening was killer, too. Definitely above average, even though the Ob La Di jam
SUCKS, imo (see also 10/22/96 Watchtower and 11/16/95 Brown Eyed Girl for messy covers). I can't rate it though. It
contains some amazing jamming and some absolutely hideous, horribly poor improv. N/R.